Row over council paying thousands to celebrities

A local authority which covers some of the capital’s most fashionable
neighbourhoods is embroiled in a political row after it paid thousands of
pounds to celebrities to appear at its functions.

Giles CorenPhoto: CLARA MOLDEN

By John-Paul Ford Rojas

6:00AM GMT 03 Dec 2011

Comics Alexei Sayle and Simon Amstell, and writer Giles Coren, are among those to have been paid for one-off events by Camden Council, over a five-year period.

But a new administration at the town hall has pledged to end the practice – with councillors instead suggesting that stars living in trendy districts such as Hampstead and Primrose Hill could volunteer their services for free.

Figures unearthed by the Camden New Journal showed Coren, a food critic and broadcaster, was paid £2,000 to promote Kentish Town in a photoshoot with councillors in 2009.

He was said to have tweeted that the job was “quite well paid” and should cover the parking fines he had been charged by the council over the years.

In 2007, Never Mind the Buzzcocks presenter Amstell was paid £5,000 to host a private awards ceremony for the council – a job that had previously been done for free by a senior member of council staff.